


Clocks

by confiscatedretina



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 17:28:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1558322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confiscatedretina/pseuds/confiscatedretina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's apologizing. She scowls, curls her lip, listens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clocks

**Author's Note:**

> A short gift fic for [Chell Dementra](http://zijora.tumblr.com) based on Coldplay's "Clocks".

No one seems all that surprised or interested when Chell walks into the amateur radio group. Their disinterest makes her feel better and she sits down near the back to listen to the coworker who'd been enthusiastically talking about radio earlier dole out a list of numbers and frequencies. Chell doesn't understand any of it but she knows it will click in her mind eventually.

She's not interested in talking with anyone, just curious about the rest of the world. Since her escape, Chell has hungered for the sound of real human voices. Whether she can respond has never been of interest to her and she's never tried, but Chell loves to listen. For safety's sake, she learns Morse code before acquiring her radio.

The first few weeks she sits by her open window in a dark apartment, carefully twisting the dials until she hears a voice. It doesn't matter what language they speak or what they're saying. She smiles at the sounds of quiet conversation underscored with a dusting of static. More than once she falls asleep with the radio on, still smiling.

His voice, distant but still laced with that hint of machinery, wakes her from a dreamless sleep with a start. Chell almost knocks the radio out of the open window in her hurry to fumble it into better reception with shaking hands.

It's not that Wheatley's voice is a welcome one; far from it. In many ways, he was far worse than GLaDOS ever could have been. But here Chell is, tuning her radio in the light of a full moon to clarify his tiny voice.

He's apologizing. She scowls, curls her lip, listens. It sounds like the continuation of something he's been saying for...how long has it been, anyway? Years, at least. Chell has to turn the radio off before she can go back to sleep and her dreams are troubled with the sounds of massive pistons moving parts in a labyrinth with no escape.

But she keeps listening. Night after night, his voice quieter then louder as the moon shifts in orbit, she listens to him explain himself, beg forgiveness, talk about how brilliant she was (is). Sometimes she can't help but laugh silently at his awkward phrasing. Sometimes she falls asleep to the sound of his endless apologies.

After a year, maybe more, she lets out a frustrated sigh and pulls the Morse translator toward the receiver. The message is curt and short. A few moments later he lets out a confused exclamation. She repeats herself three times before Wheatley understands. Chell rolls her eyes so hard over the course of the next hour that it makes her head hurt. He begs her not to leave when she has to sign off for bed and she promises she'll be back.

Keeping the promise is harder than she thought after the nightmares come back. And yet... They keep talking anyway. Chell starts to think he's not so bad at this distance, several months after their correspondence began.

Wheatley once compared her to a tiger, when he didn't know she was listening. Sometimes she dreams about that and finds it is easier to break through the labyrinth with claws and fangs. It dawns on her slowly, over many months, that his betrayal ultimately earned her freedom. She'll get around to thanking him eventually.


End file.
